


Rhonda Dines Alone

by The_Man_With_The_Tattered_Smile



Series: Sunnydale Unearthed [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22302463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Man_With_The_Tattered_Smile/pseuds/The_Man_With_The_Tattered_Smile
Summary: Ever since she was possessed by a hyena, Rhonda has hard strange urges - and now that the Slayer's away, it's time she let them out to play...
Series: Sunnydale Unearthed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605358
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	Rhonda Dines Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This story largely takes place in the gap between the first and second seasons of "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer", but concludes shortly after the events of "School Hard", between that episode and "Inca Mummy Girl".

Rhonda pulled her head back behind the leaves, but it was okay. She was well hidden by the bushes she cowered among, and Buffy hadn't seen her. She got into a car with some old dude – must be her dad, since she only lived with her mom usually – and a crapload of luggage. Rhonda watched them drive away. She was close enough to hear Buffy's mom telling her that she'd see her at the end of summer. Which was weeks away.

One less excuse.

She'd been keeping tabs on Buffy and her little friends for a while now. Ever since she noticed how often Buffy got involved in weirdness of all kinds, and especially the kind that dropped bodies. Buffy tended to get involved in these things – Rhonda wasn't entirely convinced that Buffy didn't go for looking for them on purpose. Buffy, and her little friends – the nerd and the clown – got into these things, and quickly brought them to an end. She was reckless, and so far she'd been lucky. Rhonda was not reckless, and hated to rely on luck. Rhonda was patient, and preferred planning for every contingency.

At least, planning as best she could when she hadn't had a good night's sleep in months.

Rhonda hadn't been sleeping well for a while now. Not since that zoo trip earlier in the year, and the unpleasantness with the hyenas. She wasn't the only one, either. Heidi had told her that she was going to ashram over summer, to meditate and do yoga and get over the nightmares that had been plaguing her for months now.

Both girls had been tormented by the memories of the things they had done when they were possessed – not the being mean to people, because Rhonda firmly believed that being mean was okay if the person you were mean to was hopeless anyway, but the other stuff. The stuff with the pig and the principal. They'd confided in each other about how well they remembered it, and how it felt, and wished they had someone else they could talk to about it.

But who else could they talk to? Tor and Kyle had stopped speaking to both girls after the whole thing was over – and Kyle was dead now anyway, murdered by some homeless or something. That left Xander Harris as the only other one who might understand, and Xander Harris was a clown. And way too close to Buffy. Besides, as Heidi pointed out, he hadn't been there for the worst part. Rhonda agreed with her about all of it except for the last bit. Eating the principal, his warm blood still pulsing and splashing everything in the room, including them, had been the best part. The taste of human flesh was like nothing else Rhonda had ever experienced. It was better than sex (or at least, better than sex with either of the two guys she'd actually done it with), and Rhonda wanted more of it.

Ever since that incident, Rhonda had been making some very discreet enquiries on the internet, asking some highly pertinent, but very oblique questions about how and where one might be able to acquire certain things. She'd spent hours in the library – the municipal library, not the school one, where she was pretty sure no one else from the high school ever went – which had delighted her parents. They thought she was studying, and they weren't wrong about that, but Rhonda wasn't studying anything that would help her grades. She was in the true crime section mostly – reading books only while she was there and never borrowing anything that might look suspicious (she wasn't sure if that Brad Pitt film was telling the truth about the FBI tracking borrowing records, but she wasn't taking any chances).

She read about Flight 571, and about Jeffrey Dahmer, and about Rick Gibson, and about Richard Chase. And she took notes, heavily-coded notes that she hid in the safest place she could find (in a locked box hidden under Tor's house (next door to her own) that she was careful only to touch while wearing gloves). Rhonda was taking as few chances as possible.

Because Rhonda was planning to take a very big chance indeed. Rhonda wanted, more than anything in the world, to taste human flesh again. (Oh please God yes!)

Fortunately for her, she lived in the perfect place to do it. Sunnydale had a low population, but percentage-wise, its unsolved murder rate was ridiculously high. People disappeared in great numbers, and the police were always happy to write off the latest missing person as a runaway who would turn up again (although very few of them ever did, and fewer still did so alive). If you were planning to kill and eat someone – and get away with it – you couldn't ask for a better place to do it in than Sunnydale.

She had most of the details figured out now. It was summer, so there were more people around on the streets, especially during the daytime, but according to the statistics, summer was also when the most people disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Rhonda had made a list of her criteria for a target, and ruthlessly pruned it of anyone she had a personal connection to. However much she might despise the new principal, for instance, anyone with a disciplinary record was likely to questioned if he suddenly turned up missing. Better to be someone she had no connection to, and someone unlikely to be missed. She'd eventually decided that the best choice would be to pick up a sailor, letting him think he was in for some kinky sex, then showing him something way beyond anything a safe word would ever cover.

And the plan had gone off perfectly.

She'd dressed up like a whore, waited by the docks until she saw a sailor on his own, then made her move. He agreed to go back to her room – actually the cellar of a vacant house she'd broken into and renovated the basement of for her needs – and even given her money. It was like being the wolf and having the sheep not just volunteer to be eaten, but actually pay for the privilege.

And he'd tasted so much better than the principal! He was younger and fitter, his flesh looser and more toned than the middle aged man's had been. It had a salty tang to it that Rhonda assumed was just the result of being at sea a long time, which was surprising at first, but quickly became a thing Rhonda enjoyed.

She'd taken another one a month later. 

And a third, two weeks after that. 

By the time school came back, she was taking one a week. She knew she should slow down, but it was just so... irresistible.

Still, when school started up again, Rhonda had been forced to slow down. Now that classes were back in session – and Buffy was back in town – she had fewer opportunities anyway. But her stomach moaned for more meat, more fresh, bloody, human meat, and it was hard to concentrate.

Finally, the weekend after parent-teacher night, she'd had to feed again.

She'd taken a sailor, and brought him back to her lair, and feasted and feasted, getting lost in the ecstasy of it all after waiting so long...

...And there'd been a knock on the cellar door.

She'd tried to ignore it, but it was insistent.

“Go away,” she shouted.  
“Not likely,” said a voice. Rhonda thought it had an English accent. “Not while I can smell so much lovely fresh blood in there.”  
“He's mine,” she responded, protecting her meal. There was a chuckle from the other side of the door.  
“Why don't you let me in, pet, and we'll discuss that.”  
“There's nothing to discuss.”  
“You know,” said the voice conversationally, “up until now, I've been being polite about this. And I'd like to stay that way. If I have to let myself in, well, I'd stop being so polite.”

Rhonda thought about it for a long minute before she replied.  
“Okay,” she said.  
“Okay, what?”  
“Okay, I'll unlock the door.”  
“Excellent, pet.”  
“You might want to step back, they open outwards.”

She flung the doors open and leapt back as fast as she could, but aside from the doors, nothing moved. A blonde man in a black trenchcoat stood regarding her through the opening, his arms folded and head cocked to one side.

“Bloody hell!” he said, taking in the cellar behind her, and the remains of her meal. “A proper, honest to god cannibal. I thought you lot were a myth.”  
“I'm not-” Rhonda began, but then thought about it. “Well, I suppose I am a cannibal. What of it?”  
“Nothing love. Stones and glass houses, you know? I've eaten the odd sailor or two myself from time to time.”  
“You have?” The man nodded as he walked past her to look at the sailor's body.  
“Not just sailors, either. Men, women, children – here, have you ever had a baby? Nothing beats the taste of a nice newborn, let me tell you.”  
“You're,” Rhonda began, and hated how nervous she sounded. “You're a cannibal too?”  
“Well, not as such,” the man said, and he grabbed her by the shoulders, and his face changed into something hideous, and she felt his teeth at her neck. So this is what it felt like, she thought, but the man didn't bite her flesh away, he just bit once, and began to suck, and Rhonda realised what he was, what he had to be, and she tried to scream but it was already too hard to do anything, and the world faded away.

Two days later, Spike threw the newspaper across the room in disgust.  
“Do you know, Dru, I'm beginning to think that the police in this town might not be on the level.”  
“Why not, my darling?” responded the love of his unlife.  
“Well, this article here talks about a suicide pact between some high school girl and her sailor boyfriend, and that's not what happened at all.”  
“Shall we punish them, the filthy fibbers?”  
“Dru, you know how much I love to watch you punish people,” said Spike, and she nodded eagerly.  
“Whether they deserve it or not!” she added.  
“But if they're going to cover up things like this girl and her dietary preferences, they'll probably cover up for us, too.”  
“Was the girl the cannibal you told me about, Spike?” asked Dru, and Spike nodded. “I do wish you'd be a good boy and remember to share with your Drusilla. I've never tasted a cannibal.”  
“Ah, you wouldn't have liked it anyway, Dru. It was worse than that time in San Francisco, the ay those vegans we had tasted. These walking happy meals only taste good if they have a balanced diet.”  
“So what did this one taste like?”  
“The opposite of vegan, love.”


End file.
